Now the leaves are gone from the trees, and the winds have turned cold. The bay has lost its heavenly summer blue, and now it looks gray and sloshy like a sink full of dishwater. Hunters in flaming orange prowl through the underbrush, making all the rest of us uneasy. Lest we be mistaken for deer ourselves, we dutifully don our own orange hats and vests, and strap orange jackets onto our dogs and horses and children. We all glow in the dim twilight, like a village of circus clowns. The deer, apparently unconcerned, continue to nibble nonchalantly by the roadsides while the stealthy hunters ponder their tracks and droppings deep in the dark woods.

Night draws on early now, and after supper we gather by the fireside to read our Harry Potter aloud. By eight o'clock, another chapter is finished, and, for the young scholars who will leave for school before the sun is fully up again, it is now bedtime. For the rest of us, it feels like midnight or more. In the fireplace a log shifts, and the house grows quiet. Fall is a good time to think. Ever eager to do my part, I've been thinking. Thinking about new music, and new ways of making music.

When we moved to Maine from New York City 12 years ago, I felt that I was somehow keeping an appointment. We didn't know anyone here, and we really had no logical reason to be here. But somehow a voice was calling, someone was saying "pssst! ...over here" and winking at me. If it didn't sound quite so pompous, I'd say that I had a rendezvous with my own soul. Luckily, I managed to show up for it, and thus began a glorious decade of life. My musical life was transformed, and in the silence and peace of the countryside I began writing my love songs to Nature. I recorded them over the course of a half -dozen CDs or so, many of which are on your own shelves, (and many more of which are still on mine!)

It has been a magnificent time for me. Unlike so many other winking assignations, this one was the real thing. I am proud of the music I have made, delighted with the adventures it has led me on, and, most of all, grateful for the support and kinship I have found in you, my musical friends.

And now it's time to start a new adventure. I have been squirming and fidgeting recently. I've known that I need to move on to the next musical path, but I haven't been quite sure what it was. I even asked your advice a couple of newsletters ago, in a survey. I wanted some guidance about what to do, where to go, how to get there. But your collective answer was, if not comforting, at least rather direct : "Just Keep Going!"

Like a bony finger thrust from a dark cloak (see, I told you we've been reading Harry Potter) you pointed into the void, as though to say "You go first". So here I go.

My new adventure consists of two major elements, the River Music Orchestra and Music for Neighbors. They go together, but let me explain them separately first.

The River Music Orchestra is my name for a brand new kind of symphony orchestra. It will consist of ten synthesizer players playing ten synthesizers onstage. I know many of you recoil at the mere thought of ten electronic instruments. But imagine the possibilities: This orchestra can sound like a huge thundering brass band playing a Sousa march, and then instantly become a choir of banjos, or delicate Peruvian flutes. We can play some of my own familiar compositions, complete with seagulls, loons and harmony parts, and we can also play reggae and blues and even "Earth Angel" if we really had to.

I can hear the mutterings of some disenchanted skeptics out there. "I like real piano music! I like the soothing sounds of nature. I like acoustic, natural, musical sounds, not the tinny blurbles and phony bleatings of a bunch of computers!"

Well, consider this: What's so natural about an acoustic piano? It's an incredibly sophisticated piece of engineering. And just because the technology is old technology that doesn't make it any more "natural" than a car. Or look at another example, the pipe organ. Pipe organ purists sometimes get quite huffy about synthesizers. But when you think about it for a minute or two, you realize that pipe organs are the original synthesizers! The stops on a pipe organ are all imitations of other instruments; oboes, strings, trumpets, even the human voice. It's not that the synthesizer is bad, it's just something new and unfamiliar. I almost hate to tell you this, but more than half of my own records were played on synthesizers. So if you like Circle Round the Seasons, or 50's Slow Dance, you'll love the River Music Orchestra! Remember, the word "synthetic" doesn't primarily mean fake or artificial. To synthesize really means to assemble a lot of separate parts into a single whole. And that's exactly what the River Music Orchestra will do. At the moment I'm working on an arrangement of Stravinsky's incredible score "Petrushka", and I can't wait to get started on the 1812 Overture and the Nutcracker suite. It's a truly unlimited toy chest of music and sounds, and you can understand why I'm so excited about it. I feel like a kid who has received not just a box, but a whole railroad car full of brand new crayons, with millions and millions of colors!

But that's not all. The second part of my new vision is what I'm calling "Music for Neighbors". I have noticed, over my years of giving and attending concerts, that there is a gulf between the performers onstage and the audience members. Not that there isn't usually a great rapport between them, but there is always a wide gulf. The people in the audience would never consider being onstage themselves, so they take on a passive role as observers and consumers, and leave the music-making to the experts and trained professionals. The concert takes on a sort of producer/consumer relationship. This is pretty natural, and it's easy to see how it has evolved. But there's something about it which disturbs me a bit.

The problem is that we tend to forget that music truly belongs to everyone. It's in our blood and our innermost cells. Not that we all have the same aptitude for it; we don't. But I have learned that what makes any concert great is not simply the skill of the performers onstage. That can make a concert exciting. But the most powerful musical experiences are the ones in which it is somehow obvious to everyone that the music is about all of us, not just the people on stage. The professionals are just part of the picture. Their job is to generate music in such a way that it will awaken a spark of recognition in everyone's heart, and it is those combined sparks which create the fire that warms and thrills us.

I know that this is getting rather highfalutin' for a newsletter. Especially when you consider that many of you found this newsletter in your mailbox simply because six months ago you innocently picked up a tape of Sixties tunes at a gift shop. But please have patience: I'm almost through.

What I want to accomplish with my Music for Neighbors idea is to blur that dividing line between professional and amateur musicians just a bit. In every community I play in, there are always good musicians. Most are not professionals, but there might be a wonderful soprano who sings in church, or a very enthusiastic and talented high school choir, or maybe a gifted young flute player who is working hard and sounding good. What I plan to do is to write arrangements for my River Music Orchestra which can include some of these local musicians. Several months before a concert, I'll contact some people in the community where we'll be performing, and find out who the local musicians are. After that I'll send out parts for them to practice, and then they'll join us in the concert. I've already tried it a couple of times, and each time it has absolutely electrified the whole undertaking! It makes the concert much more exciting for everyone, but moreover, it helps to bridge that gulf between the itinerant professional and the passive audience. The professionals are not simply showing off their wares. They are also working as jewelers who use their expertise to set the stones and gems of others in a way that shows them to best advantage. Music is shared, not simply dispensed. It's better that way.

So that's where my next musical path is headed. I'm so excited about it that I can hardly keep myself from sprinting, but I know I have to pace myself. These projects which I've described are huge, complicated and expensive, and frankly I'm a bit daunted from time to time. That's why I wanted to explain them in some detail to you folks. I know I've told you a million times how much I appreciate your interest in me and my music, and I do. And now I need it more than ever.

So as the snow falls and the winds blow, the lights will be on here at the Henhouse this winter. I'll be hard at work building my musical dreams, like a mad professor making a flying saucer in his basement. With any luck, some fine day next spring I'll wheel it out, and we can all go for a ride!

Well, dear people,that's what's going on in my musical life these days. I realize it's more than many of you want to know, but I wanted to be thorough in articulating my vision. I hope you find it interesting, if not downright thrilling. Let me know. This is a new venture without any real precedent that I'm aware of, so any thoughts, information or assistance you might have would be most welcome. Have a good winter, and thanks again for your interest.

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